•  David Poland kicks off his list of the year's best by taking a jab at supporters of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," "There Will Be Blood" and "Zodiac," chalks the lovefest up to "critical onanism."  Oh, and "I'm Not There" tops his list. [The Hot Button]

•  Bob Verini hypothesizes the comedy and musical categories of the Golden Globes to be a major audience draw for a telecast. [Variety]

•  Jeffrey Wells talks to filmmaker Daivd Fincher about "Zodiac" and next year's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," among other things. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Tom O'Neil and Pete Hammond call the race as it is...for now, anyway. [Gold Derby]

•  The Times of London has a sit-down with "4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days" helmer Cristian Mungiu. [Times Online]

•  Todd Martens on the music behind John Salyes' "Honeydripper." [Extended Play]

•  Stu VanAirsdale kicks off his annual "Top 10 Top 10 Lists" list. [The Reeler]

•  Josh Jurgensen sits down with Tim Burton to talk "Sweeney Todd." [Wall Street Journal]

•  A little Helena Bonham Carter worship from Nathaniel Rogers. [The Film Experience]

•  "Atonement," "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" and "The Great Debaters" land on a list of the week's mostpirated flicks. [Torrent Freak]

•  The Hollywood Reporter's Andrew Wallenstein responds. [Reel Pop]

•  New York Magazine, meanwhile, wonders how long studios will continue to mail out screeners given how piracy happens each and every year...but I wouldn't worry about that yet. [Vulture]

•  Ramin Setoodeh is back with an anti-"Atonement" survey, an anti-"Sweeney Todd" hypothesis, and some pro-"Juno" sentiments. [The Gold Digger]

•  Paul Brownfield talks to Vanessa Redgrave about the "gravity" of her five minutes in "Atonement." [Los Angeles Times]

•  Donna Freydkin gets into the threads of "Sweeney Todd" with costume designer Collen Atwood. [USA Today]

•  A night out on the town with "The Kite Runner" star Khaid Abdallah. [New York Times]

•  Lindsay Lohan is guaranteed at least one award this year. [MSNBC]

•  Our own Anne Thompson runs through some Oscar prognostication off-site... [Premiere]

•  ...and wraps up the holiday season at her blog. [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  Jumping ahead to next year's rat race (I know), Jeffrey Wells runs a reaction from behind the scenes to David Fincher's upcoming "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  The Envelope jumps on that bandwagon with a photo gallery preview. [The Envelope]

•  Sasha Stone has a preview of tomorrow's USC Scripter nominations announcement. [Awards Daily]

•  Tom O'Neil is hearing "multiple reports" of back room dealings with guys in smoking jackets holding snifters of brandy coming close to a deal that will permit the Golden Globes show to go on in the midst of the strike. [Gold Derby]

•  David Carr comes back and focuses on the "other" horse race of 2008. [The Carpetbagger]

•  The Baltimore Sun's Michael Sragow, perhaps rightly, hypothesizes that hero lampooning no longer interests audiences, weighing the box office receipts of "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" against those of "The Great Debaters." [Los Angeles Times]

•  Ryan Stewart sits down with the "There Will be Blood" script to find clues of Daniel Plainview's impotence over the holiday break. [Cinematical]

The year-round Oscar game is a tough road to hoe, something I abandoned a few years back.  But it's always fun to stake a claim early in the year and see how first impressions do or don't pan out for Oscar glory.

I generally get into year-in-advance predictions over at my own digs the day after the Oscar ceremony, but I thought I'd make my first post of the new year here at Red Carpet District the net's first piece of 2008 Oscar speculation.

Of course, no one in their right mind thinks they can foresee how an Oscar season will turn out this far away from the dance.  "Sure things" turn into awards duds ("Alexander," "The Shipping News") and unseen contenders fly out of the blue as a matter of course ("Million Dollar Baby").  Likewise, campaigns can work wonders for a film otherwise considered a stretch for Oscar, while other times the Academy just does what it wants to do and no one can see it coming the day before nominations are announced.

It's not a science.  But it is fun.

That said, I wouldn't want to ruffle the feathers of those who think us lowly Oscar bloggers are raping and pillaging the filmmaking form by tossing around ideas such as this, so I'll leave it with a modest list of titles I'm personally keeping my eye on for next year's ceremony:

•  “The Argentine”/“Guerilla” (Focus Features)
•  “Australia” (20th Century Fox)
•  “Body of Lies” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
•  “Changeling” (Universal Pictures)
•  “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount Pictures)
•  “Defiance” (Paramount Vantage Pictures)
•  “Frost/Nixon” (Universal Pictures)
•  “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” (The Weinstein Company)
•  “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company)
•  “Revolutionary Road” (DreamWorks SKG)

I'm being pretty reserved by keeping it to 10, and really it's 11 with Steven Soderbergh's Che double dip.  There are a number of titles bouncing around inside my head to say the least, but we'll see how this list changes as we get closer to the more detailed look ahead at that other site.  Regardless, here's hoping 2008 is as cinematically satisfying as 2007 was.

Happy New Year.  (And go Trojans!)